Business Strategy Archives – Page 4 of 38

7 Apr 2016

The Power of Knowing Your Entrepreneurial Focus

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T11:44:15-06:00April 7th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|Tags: advice, business, business strategy, business success, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, focusing on results, leadership, mission, purpose, self focus, strategy, success, workplace|

It is very difficult to focus on a business mission and yourself at the same time. Clarity makes all the difference.

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“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Robert

Robert has somewhere between seven and a dozen small business ventures on the go at any time.

If he sees an opportunity or has an idea, he is quick to launch it. One of the businesses started out in managed information technology services. Then a client asked
if he could build her a […]

28 Mar 2016

Stuck? Begin With the Start in Mind

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:11:26-06:00March 28th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, The Good Men Project, Working on the Business|

Begin with Start - Writing Business Ideas

Are you excellent at picturing the end-solution and then working backwards? There are times when that approach fails.

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As an entrepreneur, I can imagine, in great detail, a lot of possible things I could do or build. I’ve run into plenty of others in the same boat. Ideas are rarely in shortage.

Call it chasing the squirrel or the shiny blue ball syndrome.

The solution in most cases is to […]

21 Mar 2016

Manage Your Brand: Win the Hearts of Customers

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:11:51-06:00March 21st, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Oilfield Pulse, Sales|

Happy Customers - Branding

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People buy Apple products, because Apple has a powerful brand that connects to their ideal customer.

Consumers can see the connection to the iPhone in their hand or the MacBook Pro in their lap along with the company itself.

It doesn’t matter if the products are manufactured offshore by companies and people they don’t know exist. It doesn’t matter if the components in the phones are fabricated by other companies most of us have never heard of. […]

17 Mar 2016

Win-Win Always Trumps Creating Losers

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T11:44:54-06:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

You don’t have to make people lose to win. In fact, it is usually a bad long-term strategy.

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“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.“ ~ Zig Ziglar

If you have been watching Donald Trump in the news lately, you are probably quite aware that he embraces an overt and aggressive bullying technique when dealing with any opposition.

Most recently, this included attacking the credibility of a disabled New York Times reporter […]

7 Mar 2016

Partnering Starts with Brand and Trust

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:12:22-06:00March 7th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Oilfield Pulse|

Trust and Partnering In Tough Times

Critical Parts of Successful Collaboration

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Over our last 15 plus years in business and consulting, I’ve run into many cases of small businesses attempting to work together to deliver better client value, win larger projects, and share marketing and sales costs.

This is one example of what it often looks like:

Five to ten small firms targeting a similar target market form a marketing group or shell company.
They all remain autonomous and […]

26 Feb 2016

How To Put Success Back Into Your Forecast

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:13:00-06:00February 26th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Oilfield Pulse|

Rocket To Success

Here is the million dollar question: “What can Albertans and the oil and gas sector expect in 2016?”

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Some people have access to more data, but unless you’ve invented the time machine, your guess about the future might be just as good as theirs.

The Future Is Gloomy

(Update: Since this article was originally published in December 2015, the price of oil has dropped below $30 US per barrel and the royalty review results have been announced. Those […]

23 Feb 2016

Starting a Business: Assume You Know Nothing

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:04:50-06:00February 23rd, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

When you start to think you know it all, something will happen to make you believe you don’t know anything at all.

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“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” ~ Ygritte – The Game of Thrones

It is tempting to give people advice on starting a business. Do this and not that. As if everything is black and white, yes or no answers. If we had followed all of that advice 15 years ago, we would not have started our business […]

4 Feb 2016

Survive To Thrive

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:13:20-06:00February 4th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

Survive to Thrive - Plant Growing in Hands

Are you limited to survival, or can you thrive in the face of adversity?

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Sunwapta Solutions Inc. has been in business for over 15 years. Suffice it to say, we’ve been through a few economic cycles during that time ranging from the dotcom bust, 9/11, the 2008 world banking crisis, and now the current slump in oil prices.

Of course, your business might run into problems for […]

14 Dec 2015

Trying to Avoid Failure By Never Starting is a Dead-end Road

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-17T13:11:27-06:00December 14th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Man Stuck Deciding and Not Moving Forward

Many times we get ourselves into a mental trap where not moving forward seems safe. It isn’t.

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“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.” ~ Buddha

We often get in our own way when pursuing success.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people starting businesses because they have lost their job or fear they will lose it in the future. Some people […]

27 Nov 2015

Great Teams Need a Purpose

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:10:36-06:00November 27th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Dream Teams, Leadership, Manifast|

With Purpose

We don’t build great teams in business for the sake of building great teams. It would be like hiring all the best hockey players and then not playing hockey.

Great teams need a purpose or goal.

We build a great hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.

The same goes for business.

For business, the purpose is to serve clients in exchange for revenue. If we do that efficiently, we know we are winning because we generate profit and growth according to our goals.

Brand, Clients and Teams

Our brand is how […]